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Well, I was going to go yapping about why I think both baiting and hunting over kill plots are (or at least can be) examples of fair chase. But the comments generated by the last post move me to parge the discussion’s foundation a bit first. So bear with me. I won’t name names, but a few of you seemed to use the terms legal, ethical, and fair chase interchangeably or nearly so. I’d like to suggest that they are distinct and sometimes pretty divergent. So let’s have a rundown:

Legal It’s popular these days to say, “Hey, if it’s legal, go for it,” which implicitly embraces anything the law does not expressly forbid. But hold on just one durn minute: What’s legal is not always ethical or fair. It is legal in Texas, as I understand it, for rank amateurs and, I’ll add, nincompoops to shoot pigs from helicopters, maiming fifteen for every one they kill—for fun (see the video below). That’s legal. It is neither ethical nor fair chase.

Ethical What’s ethical is not limited to any sportsman’s code of fairness. It is about right and wrong in the larger sense. Most folks deem it morally permissible to kill critters for food, preferably with minimum pain and suffering. So shooting a penned pig in the head with a .22 so you can eat the other white meat is ethically fine and dandy. And if you could catch and pen one, shooting a wild deer the same manner would be, too. But, and this is the crux of the matter, it would not be legal or fair chase. Of course you don’t have to go that far: Some folks think baiting is not fair chase, but it’s certainly not unethical to shoot a baited deer for food.

Fair Chase We’ll save this one’s nitty gritty—of which there is much—for later. Let’s just say for now that fair chase is a sportsman’s code of fairness made up of mostly unwritten rules—a vague yet useful guiding principal. And whereas what’s legal may not be ethical or fair chase, and what’s ethical may not be legal or fair chase, what’s fair chase is usually ethical but not necessarily legal. For example, about half of you think baiting is fair chase, yet it is illegal in many states.

At SHOT I ran into my friend Mike who works for a maker of game calls and accessories of all kinds. I asked if there was anything new in duck and goose calls. “Waterfowl sales are soft,” he said. “Having a duck lease costs a lot of money and not many people can afford it anymore. Waterfowl is getting to be our own little sport of kings here in America.” I had just come from the Benelli booth, where I saw the new Performance Shop Super Black Eagle II.

It’s an already expensive gun with enough aftermarket barrel and choke work done to give it a $2900 sticker price. Yes, that is a lot of money for a semiautomatic shotgun. And yes, the first run of 600 had already sold out.*

So, while affordable duck calls like the ones Mike’s company makes aren’t selling in huge numbers, at least 600 people in the United States apparently have money to spend on a high-end waterfowl gun, and, I assume, a lot to spend on their waterfowl hunting in general. Waterfowling has always attracted the wealthy, but there used to be room for the regular guy in the sport, too.

I am lucky to live where leasing is not a strong waterfowl tradition. I can walk in and hunt ducks on a public area for free (I do get what I pay for: the hunting isn’t very good, but the price is right). Still, I have some very good free duck hunts with nothing more than a 5-gallon bucket, a bag of a dozen decoys, waders and a pump gun. I hope that is still true everywhere, although I fear it may not be.

*When Benelli first introduced its Performance Shop line a couple of years ago, I mocked them in print for trying to sell $2500 semiautos in the midst of a global financial crisis. The Performance Shop guns have sold very well. Benelli was right, I was wrong. Shows what I know about selling guns. Also, they are good guns. I shot the Performance Shop turkey SBE a couple of years ago, which comes tuned to shoot Federal Heavyweight 7s. The patterns were frighteningly dense.

I really don’t even know how to write about this. I’m flummoxed. Totally flummoxed. If I saw a woman walking toward me on the street wearing a pair of horse hooves, why, I think I’d just turn and run screaming in the opposite direction. B…

After a week of record rain, floodwaters across eastern Australia have forced the ground-dwelling spiders—and at least 13,000 people—to flee their homes, according to Reuters. The rampant webs blanketing vast stretches of Wagga Wagga are likely “a dispersal mechanism that allows [spiders] to move out of places where they’d surely be drowned,” said Robert Matthews, a professor emeritus of entomology at the University of Georgia.

Producing large quantities of silk creates a sort of “vast trampoline” that supports the spiders as they’re fleeing the water, he noted. Matthews added he he has never seen such a “striking phenomenon.” “Gee, it’s impressive.”

Gee, it’s impressive? That’s all you’ve got? How about “Gee, it’s terrifying” or maybe “Gee, thanks, I’ll need therapy now!” If you were a child of the Seventies, that picture probably reminds you of the last scene of that cheesy, awful and wonderfully campy 1977 horror classic Kingdom of the Spiders. Anyone remember that?

Two of Donald Trump’s sons are forced to answer to the critics after a series of photos featuring them posing with the animals they hunted and killed during an African safari a year ago surfaced.

In a joint statement to E! News, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric Trump said, “We have the utmost respect for nature and have always hunted in accordance with local laws and regulations.” “In addition, all meat was donated to local villagers who were incredibly grateful,” Donald Jr. and Eric stressed.

They also explained, “We are both avid outdoorsmen and were brought up hunting and fishing with our Grandfather who taught us that nothing should ever be taken for granted or wasted. … We love traveling and being in the woods – at the end of the day, we are outdoorsmen at heart.”

Beside releasing the statement, Donald Jr. also took to Twitter to defend the hunting. Among his tweets are “Not a PR move I didn’t give the pics but I have no shame about them either. I HUNT & EAT game”, “I AM A HUNTER I don’t hide from that” and “If the meat is all used what’s the difference? These are not endangered animals as an fyi.” PETA, however, didn’t let the two brothers get off easily. “If the young Trumps are looking for a thrill, perhaps they should consider skydiving, bungee jumping, or even following in their anti-hunting father’s footsteps and taking down competing businesses – not wild animals,” the animal rights organization said in a statement.

PETA continued blasting Donald Jr. and his brother for the photos featured on the Hunting Legends website as saying, “Like all animals, elephants, buffalo, and crocodiles deserve better than to be killed and hacked apart for two young millionaires’ grisly photo opportunity. If the Trumps want to help villagers, they have plenty of resources at their disposal.” Donald Jr. and Eric went on a hunting safari in Zimbabwe around a year ago. Photos taken from the trip show that they killed an elephant, crocodile, kudu, civet cat and waterbuck. One of the pictures displays Don holding a sawed-off tail of an elephant, while another exhibits the two brothers taking a stand beside a crocodile that is hung off a tree.

–Chad Love
Terminally ill children would receive special hunting privileges if a bill making its way through the Georgia legislature is signed into law.
From this story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:Terminally ill youth in Georgia would get … …

Leads and check cords are probably the most basic, least expensive dog training tools we have. Consequently, they’re also the most easily lost or misplaced dog training tool we have. In my own personal (and never-ending) dog training aid…

Thompson/Center has come out with a brand-new rifle–the Dimension–that really is a brand-new rifle and not a firearm that’s been around for 60 years and has had a new stock slapped on it. It doesn’t look like a conventional rifle, and T/C doesn’t even call it a rifle—they refer to it as a “bolt-action platform.”

The basic Dimension is comprised of a universal stock (with a nice squishy recoil pad that has removable spacers), an aluminum receiver, and trigger (so-so at best). The barrel(s) interchange, as do the magazine(s), magazine well(s), and bolts. This enables you to convert the Dimension to .204 Ruger, .223, .22/250, .243, 7mm/08, .308, .270, .30/06, 7mm Rem Mag and .300 Win Mag. T/C divides these ten into four Groups: A, B, C, and D.

Here’s how it works: You can buy a Dimension in any of the 10 calibers. Let’s say you get a .270, which is a Group C cartridge, and then decide you want a .30/06 because everyone needs an ’06. So you buy a new barrel, and since the ’06 is also a Group C round, all you need is a new magazine and magazine well, which are included in the price of the barrel.

If, however, you decide to shoot zombies and are damned if you’re going to pay a lot for the ammo, you can convert to .223, which is a Group A cartridge, so you need a new barrel, bolt ($48), magazine, and magazine well. Interchanging all these parts is a snap—it takes a couple of minutes—and is virtually impossible to screw up because all the components of each cartridge group are stamped with the group letter.

I’ve hunted with the Dimension (a factory prototype) and shot a regular-production model in .308 and .223 at length, including numerous caliber swaps, and here’s what I can tell you:

* The Dimension works to perfection. I don’t see how you could screw it up, but if you can, you should not have a rifle of any kind.

* It may be odd-looking, but its ergonomics are excellent.

* The trigger leaves a lot to be desired. On my rifle, it’s 4 ½ pounds and creepy, and the adjustment screw that is supposed to reduce the weight refuses to budge.

* It is not a masterpiece of the gunmaker’s art. Fit and finish are OK, but no better.

* The barrels soar far above the fore-end, much like the dirigible Hindenburg floating over New York City on its way to Lakehurst Naval Air Station. The reason for all this extra space is, if you want to install a heavy barrel, there’s room for it.

* Accuracy in my rifle ranges from superior to supernatural. In .308, with 150- and 165-grain factory ammo, it would shoot everything into 1.5 inches or less. With 155-grain Berger VLD handloads the groups averaged .474; with 168-grain Bergers, 1.068. With 168-grain Federal Match, .652. In .223, some handloads Jay Jarrett worked up for his AR went into .347; my handloads for my prairie dog rifle averaged .221; Hornady factory loads, .729; Winchester Supreme factory, .183. No, that last is not a misprint. To put the .223 groups in perspective, they’re what I’d expect from a $5,000 heavy-barreled gun built by someone who really knew what he was doing. To get them from a light-barreled, mass-produced, medium-priced rifle causes the brain to short out.

* When you switch barrels, the barrel-locking nut unscrews, and in order to do so it must slide between the barrel and the scope bell. If it does not, you have to take the scope off the rifle, which is a pain in the ass and, to my mind, the only real flaw in the design.

Will the Dimension succeed? I don’t know. What I do know is that if you can get around its unconventional looks, the rifle has a lot going for it. I’m told it may even be made left-handed. Would I own one? If I wanted to stand it in the corner and admire it, no. If I wanted to shoot something, you bet.

A Breezy Point, Minn., man was convicted Friday of second-degree manslaughter in the death of a man he knocked from a tree stand during a hunting dispute in Clearwater County in 2010. Kevin Thomas McCormick, 53, was found guilty in state district court in Bagley, Minn., after a five-day trial. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 11 on the charge, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine. According to court documents, McCormick argued with Jerry Benedict, 64, over the placement of Benedict’s tree stand, which McCormick believed was on his land in southern Clearwater County, near Itasca State Park and the White Earth Indian Reservation.

On Nov. 6, 2010, McCormick knocked Benedict from the stand, which was set up 12 feet above ground. Benedict was airlifted to a Fargo hospital the next day, suffering from broken vertebrae and abdominal bleeding. McCormick was charged with assault in the case. When Benedict died of his internal injuries Nov. 24, McCormick was charged with manslaughter.

First it was an article in the New York Times now comes yet another story in a national newspaper about the decline of bobwhite quail, this time in Texas.
From this story in the Wall Street Journal:
Wild bobwhite quail are disappearing…